Human Rights (North Korea)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing the debate. It is difficult to know where to begin talking about the horrors and atrocities in North Korea; as the hon. Gentleman said, the country is certainly in a category of its own. Although we can all unite in condemning the horrors in the country, we are, in fact, trying to identify ways to do something about the situation. I am sure that I am not alone in sometimes feeling a sense of impotence. There is only so much work that can be done in identifying the horrors, and the next step is to see what action can be taken.

We are in a stronger position than previously following the report of the UN commission of inquiry and the recent UN Human Rights Council resolution. I joined organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in supporting calls for the inquiry, not only on a personal level but on behalf of the Labour Front-Bench team, and I welcomed Foreign Office support for international action last year.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she is doing. Does she agree that now that the UN commission of inquiry has been received, and it is so devastating, we should press for it to be forwarded to the UN Security Council and call on the Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I also congratulate the hon. Lady because she has done a huge amount of work on the matter through the all-party group on North Korea, and she made a powerful speech a moment ago. I will come to her point in a moment; that is one of the steps that should be considered.

The DPRK rejected the commission of inquiry and refused to grant access, but the commission still provided invaluable evidence of life inside the country and in the prison camps, as we have heard. I pay tribute to the members of the inquiry, its secretariat and the witnesses and experts that it heard from. We should reflect especially on the bravery required from the victims who shared their experience with the inquiry. There were 80 witnesses and experts who testified publicly, while 240 people gave confidential interviews. The commission rightly emphasised the duty to protect their safety and the need for member states to provide additional protection measures where necessary. It is imperative that such efforts continue.

The report, as we have heard, provides a comprehensive account of the complete absence of human rights in North Korea. The illustrations submitted to the inquiry provide a graphic impression of the unimaginable torture meted out in the prison camps. The conclusion that systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been, and are being, committed by the DPRK, constituting crimes against humanity, demonstrates the clear need for the international community to respond.

Chillingly, the commission warns:

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

As we heard, the violations include an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association. The commission highlighted how the spread of Christianity is considered a particularly serious threat, underlining why the work of organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Open Doors is so important.

The report details how the North Korean state is an all-encompassing indoctrination machine; how state surveillance permeates the private lives of all citizens; how people are punished for watching and listening to foreign broadcasts; and the pervasive state-sponsored discrimination under the songbun system. The gross violations of the right to food and its manipulation as a means of control mean that North Korean citizens are being left to starve. The commission warned that it was particularly concerned about the long-term effects of ongoing chronic malnutrition among children.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, particularly as I had to attend a Committee during the earlier part of the debate but still wanted to put my concern on the record. She mentioned the control of information. Does that not indicate the importance of taking steps to ensure that people in North Korea have more access to what is happening in the outside world? We must make sure that they have a true picture of what is going on in their country and elsewhere. That also highlights the importance of debates such as this that keep the British public’s attention on the issue.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, debates such as this are important because if we speak out, our voices do get heard, despite the restrictions in North Korea. I would also echo the points made about the BBC World Service, although I am not going to dwell on that because those points were made comprehensively.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I do not wish to depress the House even more, but does my hon. Friend agree that things are actually getting worse by the day? We now have a situation in which Satan is devouring his children. The regime is slaughtering its own, and there has never been a time when it has been more vital that we promulgate these facts, as we heard at the meeting of the all-party group last week. Who would have thought that matters could get worse? But they have and continue to do so. That is why debates such as this are so vital.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I just mentioned the food situation in North Korea—how do we influence a regime that does not seem to care whether its people starve? What sort of leverage do we have when the issue is not just the repression of people’s freedom of expression and religion and their right to challenge the regime, but the fact that North Korea’s leaders seem perfectly happy to sit back and let their people starve? Things have indeed become much worse. I will come to how, as a matter of absolute priority, we must look at what we can do to try to change the situation.

We also heard from the report about how discrimination against women and girls has resulted in their becoming increasingly vulnerable to trafficking and prostitution. The punishments associated with transgressions are severe and arbitrary, including summary executions, most notably that of Kim Jong-un’s uncle in December last year.

The prison camps are indicative of the North Korean state’s complete rejection of basic human rights and international law. We hear about people being disappeared because of their connection with the Republic of Korea or Christian Churches—they are taken off to political prison camps. It was, I suppose, a small sign that things were not quite as bad as they have been that the commission found that guilt by association is now less frequent, although that is more than compensated for by some of the other atrocities that occur. Nevertheless, although some relatives are still at risk, the commission found that guilt by association is not quite as prevalent as it was previously.

To use the commission’s words, “unspeakable atrocities” are being committed in the camps, including

“deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide.”

It estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have died in the camps over the past 50 years, and that between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are currently detained in four camps and being subjected to horrifying treatment.

The report leaves us in no doubt that action from the wider international community is imperative. As the commission stated,

“The fact that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as a State Member of the United Nations, has for decades pursued policies involving crimes that shock the conscience of humanity raises questions about the inadequacy of the response of the international community.”

It went on to stress:

“The international community must accept its responsibility to protect the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from crimes against humanity, because the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has manifestly failed to do so.”

We know that that will continue.

The commission’s report must ensure not only that the world’s attention is on the plight of the people of North Korea, but that urgent action is taken. As has already been mentioned, action from China is key because it is one of the few countries that has some leverage on the situation. As the commission stated,

“China pursues a rigorous policy of forcibly repatriating”

North Korean citizens who have managed to flee their country, despite their being refugees in need of, and entitled to, international protection.

China not only fails to respect the principle of non-refoulement; the commission suggests that, in some cases, Chinese officials inform their North Korean counterparts about those they have apprehended. According to the commission, those repatriated are systematically subjected to

“persecution, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention and, in some cases, sexual violence, including during invasive body searches.”

As we have heard, repatriated pregnant women are subjected to forced abortions, while babies born to returned women are often killed. The risk of refoulement, and their fate in North Korea, prevents defectors who manage to get to China from registering their children’s birth in China, denying them access to health services and education. It is estimated that there are 20,000 children born to DPRK women in China. In failing such defectors, China is failing in its international responsibilities, so it is imperative that the international community challenges it.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the hon. Lady agree that China’s policy is particularly unfortunate given that South Korea would accept all the refugees? If China did not want them, they would not be left in China.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. China provides some humanitarian assistance to North Korea; one would therefore hope that it had some leverage over the Government there and could persuade them to change their ways.

The hon. Member for Congleton mentioned the fact that one action that could be considered is referral to the International Criminal Court and the adoption of targeted sanctions. Resolution 25/25, passed by the UN Human Rights Council in March, was a welcome first step in taking the report forward, in particular by extending the mandate of the special rapporteur and requesting increased support, including establishing a field-based structure to strengthen monitoring and improve engagement with all states.

However, it was disappointing that 11 countries at the Human Rights Council abstained on the resolution vote, while six—Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Venezuela, Vietnam and China—voted against it. There is more general concern about the composition of the Human Rights Council. The UK is on the council, but many member states have, shall we say, rather poor human rights records. There is concern about such countries’ failure to respect the special procedure or country-specific mandate holders. It would help if the Minister set out more about what he thinks the Human Rights Council can actually achieve—beyond mere condemnation of the DPRK regime—and how that can be done.

Following the recent universal periodic review, it has been reported that North Korea has actually agreed to consider 185 of the 268 recommendations. However, it has rejected some of them outright, including that it should co-operate with the ICC, end guilt by association, implement the commission’s recommendations, close the prison camps and abolish the songbun system. Critically, the Human Rights Council resolution recommended that the General Assembly submit the report to the Security Council for further action. The Human Rights Council called for the consideration of a referral

“to the appropriate international criminal justice mechanism”,

which would presumably be the ICC. On top of that, it called for consideration of the

“scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible for crimes against humanity”.

Will the Minister update us on the Government’s discussions with Security Council members about formally putting the DPRK on the agenda? What sanctions does he think could possibly be effective in targeting the DPRK leadership? Bearing in mind Russia’s and China’s position on the Security Council, what are the prospects and time scales for action and any referral to the ICC?

Now that the commission has reported and the Human Rights Council has passed its resolution, it is crucial that we maintain the momentum and keep the spotlight and pressure on North Korea, to try to secure the co-operation of partners in key positions of influence. It would be so much easier to say that solutions are more easily at hand in other countries, where the UK operates more leverage and where we know that we can, perhaps, achieve more good in a shorter time, but to turn our back on what is happening in DPRK, just because it is a difficult case and the solutions do not immediately present themselves, would be morally wrong. We simply should not contemplate that.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she has been generous in giving way.

The approximately 600 people from the North Korean diaspora in this country have not been mentioned so far. Could we not harness them and perhaps ask the BBC to ask them to help with some editorial work on programmes broadcast into Korea? They would surely want to help their families still left in the country.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. What always has to be weighed up is whether such a move would make life easier or worse for the people in the country. People in the country know how dreadful the situation is there. People from the diaspora community here would, obviously, need to highlight that to win over international opinion, ensuring that this matter is firmly on the political agenda. I am not so sure, although I have only just heard the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, what the impact would be of such footage being displayed in North Korea. There is a particular danger of measures being taken against people’s relatives who are still in the country. We have to be slightly worried about that.

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady gives way, she might like to consider that we are eating into the Minister’s time.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am sorry; I thought we had until a quarter past.

[Stephen Pound]

As my hon. Friend is aware, the North Korean embassy is in my borough of Ealing. I have tried to work with some of the North Korean diaspora in west London, to mount some sort of protest so that people can hear an alternative voice. I have to say to her that they are terrified. The crime of guilt by association throughout the family is so corrosive that, sadly and tragically, they will not dare to raise their heads above the parapet.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend obviously speaks from experience, having talked to the diaspora about this point.

I conclude with the words of the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who has warned that in looking at what was happening in the DPRK,

“insufficient attention was being paid to the kind of horrific and sustained human rights violations”

that were going on there. Her conclusion was that

“there can no longer be any excuses”

for ignoring that.